I love Slideshare – what a great resource for learning and inspiration.
I particularly enjoyed this guide to networking, from Jan Koenig made out of tips from business books. Have a look below – hope you like it too!

Sometimes it’s because it’s in your calendar. You thought to yourself “I should do some networking” or even more likely, you saw an invitation to an event that looked good enough for you to spend your valuable time. Factors that may have affected your decision to choose this one:

Well it’s kind of like when you go to the animal rescue centre and you have to choose just one puppy or kitten. They all seem so tempting but you can’t take them all! Hopefully this will make your decision easier.

On the 28th of September, 2012, JP and I (pictured below) went to spend a day learning new skills and trends at The Designer’s Fiesta – a “celebration of design and digital”, brought to London by the UK’s leading Adobe Authorised Training Centre – Academy Class. We went check out the latest trends in design and development and to hone our skills. Keren asked us to blog about it, and thought interview style would be the way to go. Read her Qs and our As below!

“At one point, 50% of the CD’s produced worldwide had an AOL logo on it.”

CD's are now used to scare away birds

Ahhh those were the days… Remember when an AOL CD came free with everything from a newspaper to a loaf of bread? You wouldn’t be able to get out of your house in the morning due to the pile of pointless shiny discs underneath your letterbox. On occasion, you had to take days off school or work whilst digging your way out. Our postman would feed us Mars bars through the letterbox. Digital snow days were such a nuisance in the 90s.

I think everyone knows what I’m talking about. It cost over $300 million to produce these CDs, and to what end? There were the obvious “green” issues, which are hard to ignore when you’re wasting that amount of plastic (and card packaging). I can honestly say that I never once actually used an AOL CD for it’s intended purpose – and I wasn’t alone – gaze upon the AOL Throne, or these alternate 61 uses for the spam CDs.

Keren will be speaking about “9 ways to improve your presence online” this week at The Oyster Club Seed Pearl Breakfast. If you thought there were only 5, 6, 7, or 8 ways, then you really need to come along. It will be at 9am on Wednesday the 9th of March. To book you just need to visit this link

I have been a member of BNI since the summer of 2002 and I am now at BNI Mayfair. During that time I have learned many skills, and I think it would be useful for anyone running their own business. BNI doesnt suit every one, as there are several rules to follow, it’s a big commitment, and the meetings occur very early in the morning. But a recent thread on Twitter inspired me to write this post.

For those who don’t know, BNI is a professional networking organisations where members meet weekly for breakfast and help each other by finding new business for each other and making referrals. These are tracked and statistics are carefully kept for attendance, participation and the amount of business passed.

I posted a Tweet with the hashtag (which is a clickable topic on Twitter) #ThatsWhyIDoBNI after doing some quick calculations.

But it’s important to note the other benefits of BNI so I have written a list of 11 things people will get out of membership.

BNI is great – Keren has been an active member for 7 years, and has seen all sorts of people from all sorts of businesses come through the system. Many left without seeing the benefits, but there always seemed to be a correlation of INPUT and OUTPUT. Our business here at Top Left Design is built on referral and we still can track a majority of our incoming enquiries back to people we wouldnt have met if it werent for Keren’s membership at BNI.

The best members of BNI have a good attitude. This means they HONESTLY believe in BNI and understand that nurturing relationships takes time, effort and good intentions! Givers gain and all that!

My top eleven tips to make your BNI membership a sure-fire success!
(Important – these tips work for ANY breakfast group of a similar nature to BNI!)

Come every week

Have a clear speaking voice and a clear message when you do your 60 seconds

Be specific in asking for referrals

Consider who your introducers would be in your business – parallel companies who can partner up with you – and ask for those as well as direct referrals.

Make an effort to help their fellow BNI Members – by making introductions, giving advice, giving feedback – and avoid conflicts if you can!

Spend time helping the running of the chapter itself – by taking on roles like visitor hosts/commitee members or leadership team roles.

Be welcoming to visitors and follow up on them – you may be the only one in your group who does so, and they may come back to visit again because of you – or become a good contact for you.

When receiving a referral, no matter how small it is, make an effort to follow it up.

Have regular 1-2-1s with other members.

Spending time preparing your 10minute speeches, and doing a good job with this opportunity.

Attend training, at least until you feel you are comfortable – there are plenty of great ideas given at the BNI training days, plus great networking with members of other chapters.

Try subbing and seeing how other BNI groups run – it really helps to expand your network and make the most of your membership.

And even with all this, you have to have a good attitude and believe in BNI. Then it works wonders!

As a bonus for reading to this point, here are some 60 second specific tips for you – FREE!

BNI 60 second tips:

Don’t sell TO the group – you are asking for introductions to THEIR contacts

Stand up to do your 60 seconds and also for the rererral/contributions part of the meeting too

Remember – the referral part of the meeting another chance to market yourself, so make an effort to speak clearly and be specific there too!

If you are doing your 10 minutes that day, the worst thing is to say “I wont bore you with my 60 seconds” – the 60 seconds part is another time to promote yourself and you need to make the most of it! A very common mistake.

Use your memory hook (also known as a tagline!)

Be specific when asking who you need to meet and why – as for specific companies or sectors